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The Board of State Canvassers on Wednesday unanimously agreed to allow the group Raise Michigan to begin collecting signatures to place a question on the November ballot to raise the minimum wage in Michigan to $10.10 an hour.

The group will have to collect 258,088 valid signatures by May 28 to place it on the ballot.

The group originally proposed raising the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour, and then two days before its hearing before the state board amended its request to reach $10.10 an hour, from the current $7.40.

While it would be a significant boost in pay for minimum-wage workers, the biggest impact is likely to be in the restaurant industry and others where compensation is based on tips. The minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.65.

Frank Houston, director of the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Michigan and treasurer of Raise Michigan, said the amount was changed because they listened to feedback from the public who wanted to see it amended to $10.10. Houston said $9.50 an hour still wouldn't lift a family of three out of poverty.

"We're very excited to move forward," Houston said. "We think it's essential that working people, who are truly working hard to stay out of poverty, have a fighting chance to do so."

Now that the board has given the group the go ahead, Houston said they will begin as early as this weekend collecting signatures with kickoff events in Detroit, Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo.

Under the proposal, the state's "tipped" minimum wage would rise to $3.50 per hour on Jan. 1 and increase by 85 cents each year until it hits $10.10 an hour. The minimum wage for everyone else will increase to $8.10 an hour on Jan. 1, $9.10 on Jan, 1, 2016, and $10.10 on Jan. 1, 2017. The rate could then be raised annually based on inflation, but not decreased.

If approved, Michigan would become just the eighth state in the country to equalize the tipped and nontipped minimum wage and would be the only state east of the Mississippi to have done so.

The Michigan Restaurant Association views the proposal as radical, and other business groups say the increase will reduce the number of low-wage jobs in the state.

Justin Winslow, vice president of government affairs for the Michigan Restaurant Association, said the proposal would slow the economy and cost jobs. "Michigan seems to have turned the corner in just the last two years," Winslow said. "Let's not ruin the progress we've made and go backwards with this proposal."

Yannet Lathrop, policy analyst at the Michigan League for Public Policy, a nonprofit advocacy group for low-income workers, said her analysis has shown there are about 641,000 people in the state who would be directly impacted because they currently earn between $7.40 and $10.10 an hour.

The total number of those estimated to be affected is 900,400, she said, as some workers who make close to $10.10 an hour now are expected to receive raises so they are not making the same or close to the same amount as their entry-level or lower-skilled colleagues.

Raise Michigan is a coalition whose steering committee includes members from Mothering Justice, Center for Progressive Leadership, Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength, the Building Movement Project, National Employment Law Project, American Federation of Teachers, American Association of University Professors and Michigan United, a coalition of unions, churches and nonprofits.

The group's attorney, Mark Brewer, the former longtime Michigan Democratic Party chairman, was in attendance but did not testify as the board approved the proposal after it did not have any questions and there was no opposition voiced from those in attendance.